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The Lost City of Quivera.
(By Covington Hall.)
The Vision.
"Yet a little while, my comrades,--just beyond the hills, they say,
We shall reach Quivera's country at the breaking of the day."
('thus the Spaniard Coronado urged his men along the way.)
"w e shall see its walls of silver rising from the desert's rim,
Like a gleaming, glowing glory on our eyes with searching dim.
Down its streets of burnished copper, 'neath its roofs of gorgeous gold,
We shall march in triumph, comrades, and our revels we shall hold.
In its broad and spacious plazas, by the side of lotus streams,
We shall hearon earth the music erst we only heard in dreams;
And beside life-givinmg fountains, under orange trees and palms,
W here the fragrant winds are blowing and the scene forever charms,
Where the sky is never darkened by the shadow of a storm,
We shall rest us of our labor 'till our blood flows full and warm.
We shall see her splendid daughters, far all earthly forms above,
And shall rest our weary bodies in the lap of perfect love,
They snhall sing us songs far sweeter than our ears have ever known,
''ill earth shall seem a garden with God's fairest roses strown.
'T'here no wretched hands outstretching, broken, gnarled and lean and gaunt,
shall remind us of the old lands and their raggedness and want;
There the children play forever in the fields and meadows wide,
Lithe of limnb and strong up-growing, such as give a mother pride,
tree, free as the love that bore them, for the law of thine and mine
Long ago was abrogated by that Commonwealth divine.
Peace and plenty shall be ours, fruits, flowers, music, love and wine,
Under skies forever 'stainless, where the stars of freedom shine.
Rome, Damascus, Carthage, Babylon, in all their splendor were
But as reeking heaps of hovels in comparison with her;
All the be uty of Granada, all the wonder of Cathay,
To the Citb we are nearing is as midnight unto day;
For all, all there is of treasure, and of beauty, life and love,
Has been Showered on Quivera by the smiling fates above.
We shall 4ee her, O my comrades! Ere yon moon has gone to rest
We shall lass her gates of silver and shall end our world-wide quest!"
r. , The Trail
Thus the Spaniard Coronado urged his men along the way,
Over oceafs, lands and rivers, over deserts bleak and gray,
Over mountains tall and rugged, up the beds of vanished streams,
Braving death and ice and fire for the City of his dreams.
Since his day across those deserts many men have come and gone,
Thousands upon thousands pressing, on and on and on and on,
Seeking, seeking, ever seeking for the fairied City's spires,
Leaving home and all behind them for her phantom fanes and fires.
Yea! long ere the Spaniard sought it, centuries before he came,
Other men on other pathways sought to link with her's their name,
Lucifer, Christ, Quetzalcoatl, Krishna, Budda, and the host
That oblivion long has shrouded in their graves on every coast;
Yet the thousands still keep coming, North and East and South and West,
Wistful-eyed, unresting never, to enlist them in the quest;
Hunting with unflagging courage, with a zeal that naught can quail,
For the light that shines from dreamland on a blurred and signless trail;
Victims of the guileful cheiftians who, to every questioning, say:
"Over there, beyond the mountains, at the dawning of the day,
On a river clear as chrystal, under soft, translucent skies,
There the gem you seek is hidden, there the lost Quivera lies."
(Ever thus have priesthoods spaken to the souls with hunger blind,
Urging out'the discontented, grasping all they leave behind.)
Brothers!
Comrades! ye who fought and famished on the heart-paved road of fate,
Ye who fell there in the deserts at the miraged City's gate !
And ye Dreamers who still march undaunted out into the waste,
Where the springs are few and fitful and all bitter to the taste!
Ye who led the race from cavedom to the empire of the plain,
Who have ikept hope's fires burning and the ideal without stain;
Ye who went with broken lanterns out into the fog-hung night,
Who, thru failure, death, disaster, have forever sought the light;
Ye who heard the cry for justice, held the truth alone divine,
Lo! the lights of lost Quivera thru the long earth darkness shine!
To Arms!
Hear ye not the legioned toilers moving forward without rest,
'Neath right's crimson banners gath'ring, North and South and East and
West;
Striving at the chains that bind them, growing every day more bold,
Shoulder unto shoulder fighting as the clansmen fought of old;
'Round the wide world rising, coming, pushing up the long lost trail,
Heeding not the guileful cheiftains, with a courage naught can quail;
Nation unto nation calling: "We are brothers one and all!
ILet the slave-born systems perish! Let the old gods with them fall l"
They are rising in rebellion, they aregaining strength and pride,
They are coming as resistlessly as rolls the ocean tide!
In their law books they are writing: "We, the Workers, thus decree:
Earthland and its fullness henceforth unto all the races free:
We, the Workers, promulgate Industrial Democracy."
* , * * e :e * c *5 ** * * * * * * * * *
And the reign of caste is shattered, and the law of thine and mine,
And the lights of lost Quivera over all earth's peoples shine.
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The War of To-day.
"The Associated Press came out in
box car letters on the most conspicu
ous page of the sheet with an article
under the caption: "Big Railread
Strike Threatened in the West--Krat
schnitt has left his Fifth Avenue Off
ice for Frisco, Seattle, Portland, Salt
Lake and Chicage on a tour of inspec
tion and investigation ever the strike
threatened territory."
Everybody was in a state of anxie
ty as to future developments, includ
ing BILL SMITH, the pessimist.
However, when the extra edition
came out stating that LABOR LEAI)
ERS were on Krutschnitt's trail with
the proposed ultimatum. h-4, that
KrutschnMit had e Ato the East
again and the presumption was that
he would sail for Europe before he
would submit to a conference with the
representatives of labor unions, then
the fighting qualities in all the con
stituents, all the way down to Sleepy
Bill Smith, the pessimist, were devel
oped.
Such were the developments of two
years ago which led up to the strike
now in progress. The rsult was a
strike of some 38,000 workers, and be
cause of the stubornness on the part
of the railroad plenipotentaries it was
the unanimous opinion of all workers
in the railroad industry that the men
on the Illinois Central lines should
strike to force the concessions asked
and to maintain their dignity.
The 38000 men went on strike, but
the labor movement, of winch they
were a part, failed to finance them to
an extent which would enable them
to stay on the job and fight. BUT,
the Illinois Central and Harriman
lines were members of a union whose
financial resources are inexhaustible,
and the 58 railroads of this union, bet
ter known as the General Managers'
Association, were assessed $50,000
per month to create a strike fund for
the Illinois Central and Harriman
roads. In otherwords, each road as
a member of the General Managers'
Association, has been assessed in the
24 months of the strike a total of $1,
200,000, and the total of amount paid
in all by the 58 railroads during this
time has been $69,600,000, exclusive
of loans and donations made by the
association to the struck roads. These
assessments and payments to the Illi
nois Central and Harriman lines have
been used for the purpose of annihi
lating organized labor.
These statistics are authoritative
and show conclusively that the Man
agers' Association is far superior to
anything in the line of organization
ever developed within the labor move
ment. If the labor movement has fi
nanced this strike to an extent that
500 of the 38,000 men who went on
strike have received the measly wage
of $12.00 per week since the inception
of the strike, no one knows anything
about it
The financial resources of the Man
agers' Association will be inexhaust
ible just as long as the men on the
other roads which comprise the asso
ciation, remain at work and grind out
profits for their respective companies
so that they will be able to pay their
assessmnents to the Illinois Central
and Harriman lines. If it were pos
sible for the men on the other roads
to become imbued with such modern
union principles that they would take
part in the fighrdPni t , ioto a gen
eral strike, then the General Mima
gers' Association would arrive at a
very critical point.
The managers, however, are not go
ing to arrive at this CRITICAL
POINT, if it is in their power to avoid
it. They are able to estimate the dan
ger of THE GENERAL STRIKE, and
therefore, all available machinery is
being placed in motion to frustrate
the plan, and as they are good me
chanics, when they place their ma
chinery in motion within the labor
movement it moves with remarkable
rapidity.
You who are working and who have
no other aim in life but the perpetua
tion of the industrial army-it is you
who should act together with al the
other workers in a MASS MOVE
MENT FOR A GENERAL STRIKE
and DEMAND a cessation of the ty
rannical rule and of THE WAR OF
TODAY."
The above is an editorial from the
"Strike Buletin." In it the lie is giv
en direct to the American Federation
of Labor's claim that its big treasury
and 2,000,000 (T) mmnbers of organ
ized (?) workers "are behind you
when strike if you join the Federa
tion instead of the L W. W. which has
nothing." That was the cry they put
up to the Forest and Lumber Work.
ers of the South, but it seems about
as hard for a bunch of strikers to
break into the big treasuries of the
Separation as it is for a camel to go
thru the eye of a needle, and, in the
meantime, their brothher (?) union
ists (?) are scabbing on them "24
months," and then some. There are
better union men among the strike
breakers than there are on the rail
road trains to-day. Of all scabbery,
organized scabbery, scabbery behind a
union card, is the worst and most de
spicable that curses the world of labot
to-day. "The War of To-day" would
not last six months, BUT FOR UN
ION SCABBERY.
In the name of LIFE, FREEDOM,
LOVE and JUSTICE, QUIT IT!
The Job.
(By Covington Ould Hall.)
In the last issue, number 15, of The
Social War" there is five column, first
page article by Wililam C. Owen ti
tled "Economic Revolution and the I.
W. W.," the same being supposedly, a
criticam of Frank Chester ase's ar
ticle on the I. W. W. in the Forum. As
Mr. Owen complains that "the official
organs of the I. W. W. seldom notice
criticisms," we, though The Voice is
not an "Oticial Organ," desire to
make a few remarks on his remarka
ble epistle to the lost race of United
Statesians.
He complains: "When I speak to I.
W. W. men about the land question
they wave me contemptuously aside
and tell me they are interested only in
the job!" Did Mr. Owens ever pause
to think that if the workers are so
organized as to Centrol the job they
would then be able to control the earth
and all that in it is? That the "land
question" is settled in the hour the
workers take possession of the job,
for land, like all else that is used as
private property for the exploitation
of the workers, becomes valueless to
the exploiters in the moment when
the workers control the jobs.
This instinctive desire of the work
ers for job control is no "slush" and
the agitators who preach it have come
down to substantial bedrock. The
SABOTAGE
By Emile Pouget and Arturo Giovannitti, a book every worker
should read. Paper, 25 cents, postpaid. Address The Voice of
The Peiple, 335 Careadelet Street, New Orleans, La.. Or for $1.00
we will send you a copy of Sabotage and the Voice for one year. Get
wise! Do it now, TO-DAY.
The I. W. W. Preamble
T he working class and the employing class have nothing ia common.
There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among mil
lions of working people, and the few, who make up the employing class.
have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the
world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery
of production, and abolish the wage system.
We fnd that the centering of the management of industries into fewer
and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-grew
Ing power of the dBploylng class. The trade unions foster a state of afairs
which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers
in the same iadustry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Mere
ever, the trade unions aid in employlng class to mislead the workers into the
belief that the working class have interests In common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the Interest of the working class
upheld only by as organization formed in such a way that all its members
in any one Industry, or in all Industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a
strike or lockout on In any department thereof, thus making an Injury to
one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's
work,'" we must Inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watebword. "Abo
lition of the wage system."
It is the historic mistLon of the working class to do away with capital
ism. The army of production must be organlsed, not only for the everydsy
struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism
shall have been overthrown. By organin ing industrially we are forming the
structure of the new society with the shell of the old.
United States of America is not Mexi
co and, while we glory in the great
work of the Mexiean revolutionists,
we doubt that the social revolution
has been solved there or will be any
where else until the workers graple
with the great problems that have
been forced upon them by the socialls
ing of their labor-power through the
invention and use of the "labor saving
machine."
And the machine, and not the elad,
dominates the working lass in the
United States. It is through their
control of the jobs that the capitalist
class owns the machnes, the Iads
and the hlber-pewer of the workers
and, not until the workers orga nle to
eintrel the jebs, will they get an inch
nearer freedom than they are to-day.
It is easy to glorify the Magons and
to sneer at all the men who have
served the I. W. W. In official position,
that even Vic. Berger can do, but in all
the five columns there is not a single
suggestion from Mr. Owen as to how
the fight might be made more effec
tive, and the critics should at least
give a few sugestions of a better way
or crawl off. The L W. W's. have un
doubtedly done a whole lot of damn
fool things and will very probably do
lots more. For instance a good sized
bunch of the idiots let somebody send
them down into the godforsaken
wastes of Lower Caligornia on a mili
tary expedition once upon a time, but
a little thing like that needs no explan
ation from Owen and Magon, but St.
John should be made to explain instan
ter every time a Trautman or a Ger
mer gets a dope-dream.
One peculiar thing about a lot of
this un-noticed criticism is that it is
all directed toward proving the I. W.
W. not the right road, which more
firmly convinces us that it is.
C'ontrol the jebs and establish In
lustrial Democreayl
FRANK F. VANN
WATCrMAKEI. JWELER. AN OPTICIAN
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Tb W.tches We bder Kee Pfrect 11T
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msb Juse m s. aumr Usw Stase
ALEXANDRIA, LA.
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